Masonry bricks have been, and are today, a very popular material for forming decorative outer faces of buildings. Brick is both more durable and arguably more aesthetically pleasing than many of the more recently developed materials used as facings on building structures.
Brick building facings are typically constructed by hand, with bricklayers laying each individual brick in the facing. Manual construction dictates that brick building facings must be constructed vertically atop a rigid support such as a floor member or a ledge. The floor member or ledge therefore supports substantially the entire weight of the brick facing. In typical multi-storey building construction, each floor of the building supports the weight of a brick facing extending the height of one storey.
Modern facing materials such as glass and precast concrete have advantages over standard brick facings in that they can be formed into large unitary panels which are quickly and easily installed by attachment on a building structure. The rear surface of such a panel is typically provided with bolts or brackets by which it is bolted or otherwise attached onto building structural members such as steel structural beams, concrete beams or walls. The unitary nature of such a panel allows it to be supported, or "hung", on the building structure by the bolts or brackets.
Obviously, the labour-intensive nature of forming brick building facings may make brick construction expensive compared to other types of facings, such as unitary glass and precast concrete panels.
To overcome the cost disadvantages of brick as a facing material, integral wall panels formed from conventional masonry bricks have been proposed as building facings. These integral wall panels are typically formed on their front faces, with the bricks being arranged in rows on a flat surface, such that the front surface of the wall panel is face down during its construction. Mortar is then spread over the rear surface of the panel and is forced into the mortar spaces between the bricks.
However, integral brick wall panels formed in this way have the disadvantage that they tend not to be as strong as conventional brick walls in which individual bricks are laid by hand. One reason for the lack of strength is that it is difficult to make mortar flow into the narrow spaces between the bricks during the manufacture of an integral brick wall panel. Therefore, the spaces between individual bricks may not become completely filled with mortar, resulting in weak mortar joints between bricks.
Further, conventional masonry bricks typically have a plurality of holes passing through them. When the bricks are set in place, the holes in bricks of adjacent rows align so that the holes form continuous columns throughout substantially the entire height of the brick wall panel. In conventional bricklaying, these holes are not filled with mortar. The present inventor has appreciated that if these columns may be completely filled with mortar, the strength of the brick wall panel is greatly increased. However, when making an integral brick wall panel, just as it is difficult to force mortar to flow into the spaces between bricks, it is even more difficult to ensure mortar completely fills the holes within the bricks. The disadvantage exists that no satisfactory method for filling the holes and the mortar spaces in integral brick wall panels has been proposed.